The City of London, in common with many financial markets, exists to facilitate meetings between people with money and others who have persuasive ideas about how to use capital. The big sums of money, and notoriety, are reserved for the big companies with household names, and bulge-bracket financial advisers. Below the radar sweep of most observers, however, are hives of executives, investors, stockbrokers, accountants and lawyers who duck and dive along the fine lines between success, excess and humiliating failure. Stephen Dean was a bright light in this exciting, hectic, and sometimes shadowy world of small company finance.

He was a deal-maker and entrepreneur who specialised in investing in and floating smaller companies on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and its rival called PLUS Markets, formerly known as Ofex. His investments ranged from Mediterranean moorings to pub refurbishments, magazine publishing and telecoms. A large part of his earlier career was spent in the construction and leisure industries.

Stephen Dean was born in the East End of London in 1950. He attended William Fitt Secondary School in Walthamstow, and his first job was on the forecourt of a petrol station. He went on to lay carpets and joined a drawing office in Smithfield. In 1977 he co-founded the Dean & Bowes Group, a company that refurbished public houses and restaurants, which formed his base for the next 15 years. Acquisitions played a big part in the growth of the company: in one of the larger deals D&B spent £6.5 million in 1987 on a hotel refitter called TFL.

He left D&B in February 1992 eager to focus his attention on the mechanics of finance rather than interior decoration. In 1993 he founded what became Dean Corporation — now called Lupus Capital — which has been led latterly by Greg Hutchings, the former chief of Tomkins, the conglomerate that used to own the Smith & Wesson gunmaker and Ranks Hovis McDougall, the baker.

Dean Corp joined the main list of the London Stock Exchange in 1997. In 1998 he demerged some of Dean Corporation’s interests into a company called Artisan (UK) and simultaneously listed its shares on the AIM. Dean continued as chairman of Artisan until 2002 when he moved on to develop other companies outside the building sector including Perthshire Leisure, IMS Maxims, Envesta, Elite Strategies. He also led Cater Barnard in London, and Dialog Group, Inc. in New York.

As chairman of Voyager IT.com — which was renamed Cater Barnard in 2000 — Dean orchestrated the acquisition of 20 smaller companies within the emerging information technology, internet and media sectors. Twelve were subsequently listed as independent stock market entities. Dean’s interests also grew to encompass financial services and, in 2003, he took control of a company called Griffin Group, which was responsible for giving a further 20 companies a stock market presence. In 2006 alone Dean was integral to the fundraising, development and/or formation of six companies and three reverse acquisitions on the AIM and PLUS Markets, with an aggregate fundraising in excess of £20 million.

His deals included successes such as Interbulk Investments, Vyke Communications, Clyde Materials Handling and more recently, Interactive Publishing, of which he was also a non-executive director. His death came less than two weeks after the announcement that shares in Griffin would be de-listing from AIM after a merger with Alexander David Securities. Despite suffering from cancer since 2004, Dean had a number of public company deals earmarked for 2009.

Colleagues and family valued Dean for his counsel, his experience, his good humour, nimble mind and cheerfulness. To those at the other end of his deals he was seen as thick-skinned, clever and ruthless. In 2007 he was singled out in a survey of directors’ pay undertaken by Growth Company Investor magazine for taking home £3 million while Griffin, his company, made only £614,000 of profit and had a market value of only £2 million. In March 2008, however, he was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year at the inaugural Plus Investor Awards.

Latterly Dean was a Swiss resident and spent some of his time in Majorca. London remained the centre of his business dealings, however.

He is survived by his wife, Glenda, who, with firms including Boswell Associates, is a well-known public relations executive in her own right. Dean is also survived by two sons and a daughter from a previous marriage.

Stephen Dean, entrepreneur and financier, was born on May 19, 1950. He died of cancer on November 12, 2008, aged 58